Metal
Here you'll find album histories, birthdays, and anniversaries connected to the artists who built metal and its branches, along with vinyl reissue news as titles reappear. Metal has a particularly active underground pressing culture: independent labels regularly issue small runs in colored or splatter vinyl, and older catalog titles get reworked into box sets and remasters aimed at longtime fans rather than casual listeners. The stories here follow how specific records came together — band lineups, studio choices, the scenes around them — and note when a reissue gives an older album a reason to be discussed again.
202 STORIES
The CD tray ejected, and Fred Durst was born
Born August 20, 1970, Fred Durst became the voice of Limp Bizkit. The band shoved metal, hip-hop, and punk into a single mosh pit and became inescapable by the end of the decade.
· 4 min read
Why Led Zeppelin Skipped Woodstock and Lost Nothing
Led Zeppelin never played Woodstock because Peter Grant turned down the invitation. He chose a paid headlining slot in New Jersey over a chaotic, underpaid festival.
· 4 min read
The Scream That Changed Hard Rock: Ian Gillan at 81
Ian Gillan, born August 19, 1945, brought a multi-octave voice and controlled violence to Deep Purple in 1969, changing the sound of hard rock overnight.
· 5 min read
A Prince Song, a Senate Hearing, and the Sticker
Tipper Gore's shock at Prince's "Darling Nikki" in 1985 led to the Parents Music Resource Center and Senate hearings. The result was the "Parental Advisory" sticker that reshaped music retail.
· 4 min read
Bon Jovi: How Slippery When Wet Sold 28 Million
Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet arrived on August 18, 1986, with a last-minute cover of a wet black garbage bag. It detonated glam metal into the global mainstream.
· 4 min read
Tommy Aldridge: The Bare-Handed Thunder Behind Whitesnake
A drummer who refuses to wear gloves while attacking a double bass kit for over five decades sounds like a contradiction—but Tommy Aldridge made that paradox hi…
· 5 min read
The Bass That Shook UFO's Foundations: Pete Way
Two months before his death, a freak accident left Pete Way with injuries his 69-year-old body couldn't overcome. On August 14, 2020, the bassist who had given …
· 5 min read
104,000 Witnesses, Zero Goodbyes: Led Zeppelin at Knebworth
Led Zeppelin played their final UK concert at Knebworth House on 11 August 1979. The homecoming drew 104,000 people and became an accidental monument after John Bonham's death the following year.
· 5 min read
Rikki Rockett: The Taz and the Sunset Strip Inferno
Rikki Rockett, born August 8, 1959 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, became the percussive engine of Poison. His story of survival is woven into every record the band ever made.
· 6 min read
Bruce Dickinson and the Vinyl Alchemy of The Number of the Beast
Fresh from fronting Samson, Bruce Dickinson joined Iron Maiden in Bologna in October 1981. His debut album The Number of the Beast shot to number one and became a vinyl cornerstone of heavy metal.
· 5 min read
Fillmore East – June 1971: The Mud Shark and Groupie Standards
A mud shark dangling from a fishing line out of a hotel window — that’s not a scene from a surrealist film, but the real-life seed of one of rock’s strangest co…
· 5 min read
Robbin Crosby: The Cover Art He Drew Himself
Before the triple-platinum plaques, Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby hand-drew the cover for the band's first EP. Seizing creative control of the packaging hinted at an artistic restlessness.
· 5 min read
The Face of Roots: Max Cavalera's Global Metal Manifesto
Max Cavalera turned the cover of Sepultura's 1996 album 'Roots' into a global symbol. Its story starts with a child collecting folk instruments across Brazil.
· 4 min read
The Making of Def Leppard's Hysteria: A $4.5 Million Rock Machine
Released on August 3, 1987, Def Leppard's Hysteria was a $4.5 million construction project driven by producer Mutt Lange's obsessive pursuit of a flawless pop-metal machine.
· 5 min read
The 8-String Wall: Stephen Carpenter's Deftones Legacy
Stephen Carpenter built Deftones' signature sound on seven- and eight-string guitars. His low F# riffs became the textural foundation of alternative metal.
· 5 min read
Jan Axel Blomberg: From Duran Duran Fan to Black Metal's Pulse
He grew up on a diet of football, wrestling, and synth-pop. Depeche Mode and Duran Duran were on heavy rotation, not the infernal noise of the Norwegian undergr…
· 5 min read
Korn’s Untitled: No Name, No Head, No Rules
Korn’s eighth album, Untitled, arrived on July 31, 2007. It was a radical reinvention that replaced downtuned aggression with bagpipes, a children’s choir, and a pop producer.
· 5 min read
When Priest Went Cyber: The 2001 Ripper Owens CD
Judas Priest released Demolition in 2001, their second and final studio album with vocalist Tim 'Ripper' Owens. The band teased it with lo-fi MP3 downloads on a surprisingly robust website.
· 5 min read
Lawyers at the Door, Thrash in the Riff: Sabotage at 51
Black Sabbath released Sabotage on July 28, 1975. The album was forged amid legal battles with management and a recording process that stretched across London and Brussels.
· 4 min read
The Stage After Silence: Alice in Chains’ Unplugged
Two and a half years of silence ended with a trash can backstage and a pair of sunglasses. When Alice in Chains walked onto the candlelit set of MTV Unplugged o…
· 4 min read
Metallica: The Electric Chair Was a Bassist's Idea
Metallica's Ride the Lightning arrived on July 27, 1984. Its title was dreamed up by bassist Cliff Burton, and its sound shattered the thrash rulebook the band had just helped write.
· 4 min read
The Road That Took Everything: AC/DC's Highway to Hell
In the spring of 1979, AC/DC entered a London studio with Mutt Lange. They emerged with Highway to Hell, the final album Bon Scott recorded before his death.
· 5 min read
The Number One and the Night Shift
Joey Jordison, Slipknot's rhythmic engine, died five years ago at 46. His legacy is locked into the plastic discs of an era he helped define from behind a rotating hydraulic kit.
· 5 min read
AC/DC's American Voltage: When Atco Flipped the Switch
Five Australians who had never sold a record in the U.S. cut a Bible-thumping hard rock landmark. On July 25, 1977, Atco Records wired their raw voltage into the American grid with Let There Be Rock.
· 5 min read